Elderly patients like me have no choice but go private

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Adding VAT to private medical bills will stop many elderly people from seeking urgent healthcare (PA)

I think your correspondent’s letter regarding VAT on private medicine (Letters, Why should private healthcare be exempt from VAT?, Monday 30 September) has overlooked a rather important point – that not all people using private medicine are wealthy people.

I too have contributed to NHS care all my working life through national insurance, but find now that, as a 71-year-old pensioner, with acute and very painful arthritis of the knees, I am now faced with a 60-week wait for an initial consultation – and a year or more’s wait for treatment, if I seek it through the NHS.

I live on my own and have no carer to look after me. I have no option than to go private, if I want to get my life and mobility back.

I am far from the sort of person that your correspondent refers to as “able to afford private healthcare [...] subsidised by having their care zero-rated”.

To have both knees replaced, I am looking at possibly spending more than £25,000. This amounts to well over half of the pensions savings I have accumulated through my working life, and will leave me little for any future emergencies.

If the NHS had not been destroyed by 14 years of Tory mismanagement, I would be more than happy to use the NHS – but, as I am finding it difficult to live and simply do many everyday tasks, this simply is not a practical option for me.

I am not alone in this. In conversations with other pensioners, there are many elderly people in the UK suffering similar situations.

Adding VAT to private medical bills will simply stop many elderly people from seeking relief from truly awful living conditions.

Paul Holmes

Whitchurch, Shropshire

Up in smoke

It is truly historic that we see the closure of the last coke-powered blast furnace and the last coal power station on the same day (“Britain was built on coal… but we should be glad that era ends today”, Monday 30 September).

What’s also significant is that the country where the first coal-fired power station was built should now be the first major economy to give up coal.

The Ironbridge Gorge is often considered a birthplace of the industrial revolution. In Coalbrookdale – where visitors can see the remains of the blast furnace that contributed to the development of the steel industry – we are ourselves feeling the effects of climate change, with more frequent and more intense rainfall. Last week, it even forced us to close three of our 10 museums.

This new “green revolution” is an equally momentous stage in our national history – and one that Ironbridge hopes its work will support through our history of innovation and our education programme inspiring the engineers of the future.

Nick Booth

Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Coalbrookdale

Turning the page on Boris

Considerable thanks are due to Sean O’Grady for reading Boris Johnson’s memoir – so we don’t have to (“Boris Unleashed? No, it’s more like Boris Unashamed”, Monday 30 September). It nails the truth about Johnson once and for all.

Self-serving people such as Johnson are always around; the trick lies in keeping them away from power. David Cameron is the one to blame for opening the widest of doors to Johnson.

What on earth possessed this cohort of posh boys to think they were fit – and entitled – to lead?

Mark Ogilvie

Horncastle

Solar panels on church roofs won’t solve climate change

In his Voices piece (“God is green, and denying climate change is anti-Christian”, Sunday 22 September), Justin Welby quotes a climate scientist calling for “a cultural and spiritual transformation”… but then leaves us with the idea that planting trees and putting solar panels on church roofs might be enough to contend with the climate crisis.

Those are good things to do, but any secular leader could encourage them. It feels like the Archbishop of Canterbury pulled his punch.

Planting trees or insulating buildings will not address the underlying causes of the climate crisis. Our economy is rooted in a love of money, and is causing unprecedented suffering as a result.

But perhaps Welby knows that his flock is not ready to hear a different message...

Elizabeth Slade

General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches

A big Baal of soup

Yesterday, Joanna Pallister likened Just Stop Oil Protesters with Old Testament prophets (Letters: “Prophet and loss”, Monday 30 September).

However, scripture refers to thousands of other “inspired“ individuals whose utterances didn’t make it into print and thus were regarded as inconsequential. Which category soup-throwing Just Stop Oil protestors fall into, only history can tell.

But it didn’t end well for the Baalites, who thought they could influence people by trying to set fire to water. Which is as effective as throwing soup at works of art, wouldn’t you say?

David Smith

Taunton